BOB DYLAN - Desolation Row lyrics

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They're selling postcards of the hanging<br>They're painting the passports brown<br>The beauty parlor is filled with sailors<br>The circus is in town<br>Here comes the blind commissioner<br>They've got him in a trance<br>One hand is tied to the tight-rope walker<br>The other is in his pants<br>And the riot squad they're restless<br>They need somewhere to go<br>As lady and I look out tonight<br>From desolation row<br><br>Cinderella, she seems so easy<br>It takes one to know one, she smiles<br>And puts her hands in her back pockets<br>Bette davis style<br>And in comes romeo, he's moaning<br>You belong to me I believe<br>And someone says, you're in the wrong place, my friend<br>You better leave<br>And the only sound that's left<br>After the ambulances go<br>Is cinderella sweeping up<br>On desolation row<br><br>Now the moon is almost hidden<br>The stars are beginning to hide<br>The fortunetelling lady<br>Has even taken all her things inside<br>All except for cain and abel<br>And the hunchback of notre dame<br>Everybody is making love<br>Or else expecting rain<br>And the good samaritan, he's dressing<br>He's getting ready for the show<br>He's going to the carnival tonight<br>On desolation row<br><br>Now ophelia, she's 'neath the window<br>For her I feel so afraid<br>On her twenty-second birthday<br>She already is an old maid<br><br>To her, death is quite romantic<br>She wears an iron vest<br>Her profession's her religion<br>Her sin is her lifelessness<br>And though her eyes are fixed upon<br>Noah's great rainbow<br>She spends her time peeking<br>Into desolation row<br><br>Einstein, disguised as robin hood<br>With his memories in a trunk<br>Passed this way an hour ago<br>With his friend, a jealous monk<br>He looked so immaculately frightful<br>As he bummed a cigarette<br>Then he went off sniffing drainpipes<br>And reciting the alphabet<br>Now you would not think to look at him<br>But he was famous long ago<br>For playing the electric violin<br>On desolation row<br><br>Dr. filth, he keeps his world<br>Inside of a leather cup<br>But all his sexless patients<br>They're trying to blow it up<br>Now his nurse, some local loser<br>She's in charge of the cyanide hole<br>And she also keeps the cards that read<br>Have mercy on his soul<br>They all play on penny whistles<br>You can hear them blow<br>If you lean your head out far enough<br>From desolation row<br><br>Across the street they've nailed the curtains<br>They're getting ready for the feast<br>The phantom of the opera<br>A perfect image of a priest<br>They're spoonfeeding casanova<br>To get him to feel more assured<br>Then they'll kill him with self-confidence<br>After poisoning him with words<br><br>And the phantom's shouting to skinny girls<br>Get outa here if you don't know<br>Casanova is just being punished for going<br>To desolation row<br><br>Now at midnight all the agents<br>And the superhuman crew<br>Come out and round up everyone<br>That knows more than they do<br>Then they bring them to the factory<br>Where the heart-attack machine<br>Is strapped across their shoulders<br>And then the kerosene<br>Is brought down from the castles<br>By insurance men who go<br>Check to see that nobody is escaping<br>To desolation row<br><br>Praise be to nero's neptune<br>The titanic sails at dawn<br>And everybody's shouting<br>Which side are you on? <br>And ezra pound and t. s. eliot<br>Fighting in the captain's tower<br>While calypso singers laugh at them<br>And fishermen hold flowers<br>Between the windows of the sea<br>Where lovely mermaids flow<br>And nobody has to think too much<br>About desolation row<br><br>Yes, I received your letter yesterday<br>(about the time the door knob broke)<br>When you asked how I was doing<br>Was that some kind of joke? <br>All these people that you mention<br>Yes, I know them, they're quite lame<br>I had to rearrange their faces<br>And give them all another name<br>Right now I can't read too good<br>Don't send me no more letters no<br>Not unless you mail them<br>From desolation row